Torts: Cases and Commentary - LexisNexis

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG), at its meeting of 26 March
2008, signed an Intergovernmental Agreement on the health workforce. This
agreement will for the first time create a single national registration and
accreditation system for ten health professions: medical practitioners; nurses
and midwives; pharmacists; physiotherapists; psychologists; osteopaths;
chiropractors; optometrists; podiatrists and dentists (including dental
hygienists, dental prosthetists and dental therapists). The scheme is due to
commence on 1 July 2010. Section 141 of the Health Practitioner Regulation
National Law 2009 (Act B) requires a registered health practitioner who
reasonably believes that another registered health practitioner has behaved
in a way that constitutes notifiable conduct, report that conduct to the
relevant National Agency. In addition, a registered health practitioner who
reasonably believes that a student has an impairment that, in the course of
the student undertaking clinical training, may place the public at substantial
risk of harm must report that conduct to the relevant National Agency. As to
the width of notifiable conduct, the Bill settled on the following definition (s
140):
notifiable conduct, in relation to a registered health practitioner,
means the practitioner has:
(a) practised the practitioner’s profession while intoxicated by alcohol
or drugs: or
(b) engaged in sexual misconduct in connection with the practice of
the practitioner’s profession; or
(c) placed the public at risk of substantial harm in the practitioner’s
practice of the profession because the practitioner has an
impairment; or
(d) placed the public at risk of harm because the practitioner has
practised the profession in a way that constitutes a significant
departure from accepted professional standards.
Registered health practitioners excepted from making a mandatory
notification include those employed or engaged by the insurer of the
second health practitioner and those who formed the belief that
notifiable conduct has occurred in the course of providing legal advice
to one or other of the practitioners involved (s 141).
For more information on the progress of the proposed national
registration scheme and to view the legislation, see
www.ahpra.gov.au
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